FALLING
by Hiasobi
Summary: How far will the Hyuuga House fall? [she wants to know why : he used to love her : it is madness] Hanabi. Hiashi. Neji. [ Hinata ]
1. Hanabi

HANABI

The wooden doors close silently and then Hanabi is gone.

She's left the Hyuuga house and is running down the street. She thinks she's searching for someone – someone she had never thought she's be looking for. The streets are dark and she slips into the shadows as best as she can. She hopes for fortune and prays for luck.

She's running out of time.

She understands now, as she couldn't have done before – her sister.

Hinata.

She wants and wishes and desires every thing – everything – everything her sister had done. She understands a bit better than before.

She knows back there, back in that house, actions are being made with each step she takes. Decisions are made with every move she makes. She knows, who they are going to go for answers and opportunities as she runs and leaves and proves some of those old men right.

Hanabi has been growing older and the burden of being the Heir gets heavier and heavier on her shoulders. She wants her older, shy, fallible sister next to her. She wants the girl they had all thought a waste.

She wants to understand and know and comprehend – why they couldn't have saved each other from this.

:-:


	2. Hiashi

HIASHI

He used to love her.

When she was still the only child and barely grown. When her shyness and her habit of hiding behind his kimono had been heart warming and cute instead of a weakness.

He used to be proud of her.

When she had just been born and barely a babe, he had gone around showing her to the rest of the family. This is my daughter, he had said. This is the one who will lead us all one day, he had said.

Hizashi had loved her too, Hiashi was certain. His brother had always loved his family even if he had hated the clan. Hizashi had never told him what he had said to Neji after the sealing, but Hiashi suspects it has something to do with his daughter as Neji basically ignored the clan yet paid special attention to the girl.

Sometimes when he sees her weak, bloody, and hurt he wants to run up to her and hold her in his arms and tell her that it will all be alright one day.

But he can't. Because Hiashi doesn't make promises like that after Hizashi.

And he can't stop Neji because in the boy reminds him so much of the brother he had lost, that he can barely stand to be in his presence. The pain is still too deep, he can't bring himself to sit down with his troubled nephew and speak of what Hizashi said before he left them all behind.

For a bit longer Hiashi wants to keep everything Hizashi has ever been and said for himself. Before the clan, before the Branch and Main houses, before Konoha and before Neji, Hizashi had belonged to _him ­_– he should have always belonged to him, but he's not here anymore.

So Hinata suffers and Neji suffers because the weak one is not his daughter, but Hiashi.

Now its years later, a decade of pain, and Hiashi stands in front of his nephew who looks even more hauntingly like Hizashi than ever before. Asking things of him, that might have healed the wounds long ago, but now, only rip open new ones.

:-:


	3. Neji

NEJI

It is the first thing Neji does as Head. It is his first act and use of his power when he is made the Head of the Clan.

Hinata dutifully drops her eyes and accepts the decision with barely a word.

Hiashi wants to fight it but it is no longer within his authority and Neji has proved to be perfectly reliable in his decisions – except for this: this, Hiashi is sure, is madness.

Hanabi wants to rage and scream and – she does. She yells and kicks and fights. The obedient daughter for once rebels and she wants to know; why, why one and not the other.

Why her and no one else.

But Neji, the rest of the Clan and the Council is convinced, is the way towards the future. He has the sight and the blood is thick in his veins. For his guidance, they are willing to let this transgression pass, when pressed. And they are pressed.

Neji breaks no arguments or compromise; neither does he share his reasons. This, he says, is the price he asks.

It's painful and it hurts and burns and it will last until forever as the seal is etched onto Hinata's forehead. She closes her eyes and accepts the pain and the burden.

This is the last seal to that will ever be done.

And they don't understand but Hinata does. She understands him better than anyone, she always has. She sees the light in his eyes when he looks at her, and her father is right, it is madness.

Neji was caged, and even though now he has been given the key, he cannot forgive those that had restricted and confined him for so long. Some part of him deep down will never totally forgive those who had taken his freedom away from him, no matter how temporarily. The remnants of the seal will always stay with him.

But that doesn't have anything to do with this decision, not really. And some might say he was responding erratically to the fear or suddenly whelming of his newfound freedom – but it isn't that at all.

It isn't his freedom that he fears: it's hers.

He's scared that now there are no bonds tying her down she will fly away one day; away from there, away from them.

He desires to put her in a cage – his. He wants her next to him like it has always been. He wants the promise/pledge/guarantee that she would always be by his side somehow.

And it is madness, a deep chilling madness.

Hinata knows. More than anything, more than being caged and limited and confined and being unable to reach the top of his potential, Neji fears being alone. He never wants to be left behind and alone again.

If Neji was a bird and the seal a cage then if Hinata had wings and the cage could not hold her because it has already been broken, he would – eventually will – clip her wings.

:-:


End file.
